Re: WWD Allosaurus

[Brian Choo <bchoo@cyllene.uwa.edu.au>]

Larry Febo wrote:
>One particular morphological-behavioral speculation that bothered me was
>that big Al developed a reddened nasal crest that showed his sexual
>maturity, yet,...the larger female that he attempted to mate with also
>sported a red crest. Does this make sense, that such an indicator would be
>present in both sexes? (Perhaps big Al really got his butt kicked because he
>tried to mate with a larger male!)

Big Gay Al!!! Big Gay Al!!!

Seriously though, there are a couple of examples where both sexes display a
similar high-degree of ornamentation. They seem to be mostly monogamous
breeders in which the pair stake out and jointly defend a territory. Two
examples off the top of my head - Guatopotes cichlids (ex-"Cichlasoma"
spp.) and Loria's Bird of Paradise (Loria loriae) in which both sexes have
attractive beak-wattling.

What really bothered me about that show was that the manus of the adult
allosaurs was depicted as "palm in" whilst the hands of the hatchlings were
"palm down".

Cheerio
Brian Choo